Electric-vehicle pioneer Tesla Motors is inaugurating Wednesday a network of "superchargers" that allows drivers of its luxury sedans to get from San Diego to Vancouver with few delays.

A small caravan of Model S sedans was departing at 9 a.m. from the Tesla store at University Towne Centre shopping mall to promote the West Coast charging network. Four new stations in Northern California and Oregon will close the last gap in a 1,500-mile route.

The high-voltage, direct-current "superchargers" can replicate in 40 minutes what a typical home charger accomplishes overnight -- bringing a electric vehicle battery up to 80 percent of capacity.

Beyond the Tesla supercharger network, thousands of publicly accessible car charging stations are available along the West Coast, with fees set or waived by the owner. So-called "fast-chargers" that can reboot batteries in under an hour are still scarce in many areas.

Proponents of electric vehicles are tackling a two fold challenge of building confidence not only in electric vehicles but also the public infrastructure that makes them practical to drive.

President Barack Obama has called for putting a million plug-in vehicles on the road by 2015 to reduce dependence on foreign oil and reduce emissions associated with climate change. California has its own ambitious goals that include establishing adequate infrastructure to support 1 million zero-emission vehicles -- mostly plug-in -- by 2020.

Departing home with a full battery, some Tesla Model S sedans can travel up to 265 miles before recharging. That frees the driver from local "range anxiety" associated with smaller-battery cars, but still presents challenges on longer trips.

Tesla's supercharger stations, with eight plugs each and free to its customers, are being installed along major transit corridors -- and mostly outside urban centers where owners rely mostly on home chargers.They are spaced roughly 200 miles apart.

San Diego does not yet have its own Tesla supercharger station because the city is seen as an overnight destination or starting point for drivers with home charging stations, said Tesla spokeswoman Alexis Georgeson.

She will be driving a vehicle in the promotional caravan, that will visit each supercharger station along the West Coast, and likely reach Canada over the weekend. Updates will be posted on Tesla's twitter (@teslamotors ), Vine video and Facebook accounts.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has said it found no evidence that a Model S fire on a Washington state highway Oct. 1 resulted from defects or violations of U.S. safety standards. The car struck metal debris that pierced its lithium-ion battery pack.

In a more recent incident, a Model S struck a concrete barrier at high speed in Mexico and caught fire. Tesla said its customer was unhurt.